Things Fall Apart
by Canoodles
Summary: How did they manage to screw it all up so badly?


_He was wrong. _

_"You break Captain America, you break the Avengers." _

_Wrong. _

_The man twirled the bloodied knife between his fingers, his eyes gleaming under his mop of brown hair. "This is going to be exciting, don't you think? Just you and me, Captain Rogers. It'll be fun." _

_Wrong. _

_"And just think how devastated your little ragtag group of freaks will be when they discover your dead body." _

_"Wrong." _

_"Wrong you say?" The knife cut into his abdomen slowly, adding to the growing number of cuts Steve had on his body and drawing out a thick line of blood that trickled down his stomach. Steve let out a hiss. _

_"You're wrong." _

_The Avengers didn't need Steve. Steve needed the Avengers; the Avengers were his life, his purpose, his family, but they didn't need him. They were fine on their own. Natasha had Clint, Thor had Jane, Tony had Bruce. Who did Steve have? The Commandos were dead, Bucky was dead, Peggy was... It hurt too much to think about Peggy. _

_He kept his distance from all of them. He didn't need to drag them into his problems, he didn't need them know about that one failed mission in Russia where he had a panic attack in a cave full of ice that nobody but he and Fury knew about and countless others. He needed to be strong. For his team. And that meant he needed to disguise all weakness. And that meant he needed to push them away. _

_He had to be a good soldier. That's all he is, really. A good little soldier. _

_They can function without him. He was their leader, but he could be easily replaced. By Tony, most likely. He hasn't clicked with any of them, not really, not like Tony has. It was Tony who kept the Avengers together, not Steve. Never Steve. Steve has enough trouble keeping himself together on a daily basis. _

_"You're wrong." The blade went to his collarbone next, making little stinging nips along his shoulder before sinking into the sweaty flesh with a groan. _

_"Please, Captain, elaborate." _

_"You won't break them," he gritted out. "This won't break them. They don't need me." _

_The man laughed; Steve could feel the vibrations in his collarbone where the knife was still lodged. "This is interesting." He yanked the knife out with a sudden jolt, drawing out a gasp from Steve. "Who knew Captain America had such a low sense of self worth?" _

_"They'll be fine." Steve coughed, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. "They'll be fine." _

_"How refreshingly optimistic, Captain. I'm afraid, however, that you are sorely mistaken." The man grabbed Steve by the hair and pulled him forward, his mouth inches from Steve's ear. "What if I told you, Captain Rogers," he hissed, "that your team is about to run into a death trap I set specifically for them on their fruitless attempt to come rescue you from me. What would you do then?" _

* * *

They were too fucking late. If they had maybe gotten there a couple minutes earlier, hell, a couple seconds earlier, maybe they could have stopped it.

Tony stared down at the blue sleeve peeking through the rubble and couldn't bring himself to do it. Because if he dug him up then everything would be too real and too now and everything was just happening too fast right now. This was a dream, this was a fucking nightmare, because Captain Fucking America wasn't dead, couldn't be dead, he had been goddamn frozen for seventy years and woke up he couldn't possibly be dead now.

"Fuck." Clint appeared next to him, running a hand down his face. "Fuck."

"Yeah," Tony managed to rasp out.

"If we had gotten here earlier -"

"I know."

"Just... Fuck."

They stand in silence, neither or them wanting to touch the rubble (that's covering Steve's dead body, Steve, who always put everyone else before himself) before the rest of the team comes to join them in their vigil. Their comm units are silenced, their weapons left forgotten on the floor behind them. For once, they aren't a group of elite superheroes.

They are a group of people who have lost a friend.

* * *

"We have to move the body," Natasha finally says after some time.

Thor brushes some of his dirtied hair out of his face and steps forward. "I can assist in this task."

One by one, Thor lifts up the rocks and pieces of cement and brick and dirt and the rest of the team is torn between running and watching as the captain's body is slowly, painstakingly revealed.

Tony can't watch anymore.

* * *

He found tapes. The fucking psychopath made tapes. Tony watches them in his suit and wants to scream and punch something and rip someone's lungs out and maybe cry at the same time.

He feels like he's suffocating. He can't form words, and he somehow makes it back to the rest of the team without falling apart because Steve is so fucking wrong he wants to scream.

"He thought we could function without him." His voice is dead. Emotionless. Empty. The rest of the team looks up, Thor ceases his movements. "He said that we would be fine without him. We let him die thinking that we don't need him. We - we're all such fucking idiots."

They're all silent because who can respond to that, and Tony can practically feel them falling apart, ripping at the seams, because Steve was the string that kept the all together and now he's gone.

How did they manage to screw it all up so badly?

* * *

_"Anything." He said it without hesitation. "I'll do anything." _

_"That's the answer I was hoping for. Say goodbye, Captain Rogers."_

**A/N: I recently watched the new Captain America and got attacked by Steve feels so this happened. Title does not belong to me, it is taken from the book Things Fall Apart. Please R and R! **


End file.
